June 5, 1946

Jews from Eretz Israel visiting the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, Poland

Before the city of Warsaw was rebuilt, its ruins served as the site for numerous commemorative activities and discoveries of the utmost importance, which highly influenced future Holocaust scholarship and commemoration.

A few months after this photograph was taken, in September 1946, under the ruins of Warsaw, the first part of the Oneg Shabbat Archives was discovered, the underground archive founded by the historian Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum.

Approximately a year and a half later, in April 1948, the Memorial to the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto was erected, a commemorative memorial to both the members of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the victims of the Holocaust, a copy of which stands in Warsaw Ghetto Square in Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

After two and a half years, in December 1950, the second part of the Oneg Shabbat Archives was discovered within the ruins of Warsaw. The fate of the third part of the archives still remains a mystery.

The Prime Minister of Poland, Aleksander Kwasmewski, gave this photograph to the Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, Avner Shalev, during his visit to Israel in 2000.